Financial transparency. Requiring greater transparency and better cost attribution will allow postal management to increase efficiency, and observers to monitor their progress. Adequate transparency would also help prevent abuse of the Postal Service's monopoly power. Price stability, not flexibility. The Postal Governors are calling for increased pricing flexibility, but...
Arlington, VA -- In a letter to U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors Chairman James C. Miller, thirteen prominent policy leaders today endorsed six essential elements of effective postal reform. "Above all, effective reform must benefit the American people, not just extend the Service's longevity," their letter said. The group's six principles...
The year 2004 ended disappointingly for postal reform in the United States. Despite an enormous effort by Congress, the White House, and many interested parties, House and Senate bills designed to overhaul the USPS never passed. Elsewhere the outlook is decidedly brighter for the coming months. Across the industrialized world, postal...
The United States prides itself on being a free-market leader -- a country where big government famously takes a back-seat to private competition. But amazingly, when it comes to its $900 billion mail industry, the U.S. lags far behind much of the rest of the world. As other nations move...
Bill McAllister's Sept. 19 Outlook article outlined the dismal downward spiral of the U.S. Postal Service. But there's a clear fix: Congress should end the Postal Service's monopoly and repeal its universal service obligation, which were conceived before the advent of telephones and e-mail. Hardly anyone relies on letters as a...